As far as Yankees prospects go, George Lombard Jr. was about as untouchable as they come as the trade deadline passed Monday.
Now the question becomes when the Yankees might call him up over the final two months of the season to see if he can provide a solution to their shortstop question after it went unanswered at Monday’s deadline.
“If he does [get a shot], we’ll let you know,” GM Brian Cashman said on a conference call Monday night. “Obviously tonight, that’s not the case. It’s business as usual the way we’re currently set.”
That meant Anthony Volpe and José Caballero continuing to split the position for now, as the Yankees entered Monday having received 0.8 bWAR from their shortstops this season.
Neither Volpe nor Caballero has done much to put a stranglehold on the position, creating questions about whether Lombard will get a chance to take over this season.
The 21-year-old Lombard, after returning from a finger injury in mid-July, has been tearing it up at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, batting .268 with a .845 OPS across 56 games — including .377 with a 1.081 OPS in 14 games since coming off the injured list.
Cashman indicated the Yankees explored adding a shortstop or infield help, but did not ultimately see a match — at a deadline when no major league shortstops got traded.
“I don’t think there were a lot of opportunities that existed that were upgrades for us,” Cashman said. “We like the players we have and we like the players we have on the come. … It was going to be a high bar.”
When describing his negotiations with the Tigers on Tarik Skubal, who ultimately went to the Dodgers, Cashman hinted that they may have asked for (and refused to move off of) Lombard, a price he was unwilling to pay.
The Yankees believe that Lombard — whose makeup and baseball IQ gets raved about by any and all club officials — is already ready for the big leagues defensively.
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Offensively, he has taken some time to adjust to each new level in the minors, so if the Yankees want to have Lombard as their shortstop by the playoffs — or at least see if he can handle the job — it may behoove them to call him up sooner rather than later to give him enough runway into October.
